Paparazzi are 'self-serving' liars who tried to sell pictures of dying Diana for £300,000

By MICHAEL SEAMARK and REBECCA ENGLISH

Last updated at 14:38 31 October 2007

The French paparazzi were branded "self-serving" liars more interested in selling pictures of dying Princess Diana for up to £300,000 than saving her life, the inquest heard yesterday.

Motorcyclist Stephane Darmon and his passenger, photographer Romuald Rat, were first to arrive at the Paris underpass where Diana and her lover Dodi Fayed lay in the wrecked Mercedes.

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But within hours they were offering pictures of the dying princess with blood trickling down her face to newspapers for six-figure sums.

Darmon described himself as merely a despatch rider and "tool" for his photographer, Richard Keen QC told the jury.

Rat has told French police his priority once at the Alma tunnel was to prevent colleagues taking photographs of the dead.

The reality, said the barrister, who represents the parents of driver Henri Paul, was very different.

He told Darmon: "Can I suggest that I think both you and Mr Rat's accounts contain a series of self-serving lies which you have told in the face of allegations of manslaughter and failing to give assistance to persons in distress."

The QC referred to a statement the motorcyclist gave to police in which he said he "found all these games quite exciting".

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Mr Keen told him via video link to Paris: "This particular game wasn't so exciting when it ended in tragedy and death was it?"

The jury at the High Court was read parts of a statement Rat gave to the French authorities about his claimed actions on the night of the 1997 crash.

The photographer said: "I recognised Fayed who was lying across the rear seat completely contorted.

"People were coming up to look, not to help. I thought they were all dead. I got angry and I got all the people away."

He added: "I then saw a man with an oxygen mask. I picked up my camera and I took a few photographs without going up close. I did see that others were taking some. If I had been alone I might possibly not have done it."

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But the barrister told Darmon that by the time he and Rat were arrested he knew the photographer "had got his scoop".

Mr Keen recounted a conversation, shortly after the crash, between Rat and Ken Lennox, picture editor of The Sun, in which the newspaper was offered the pictures for £300,000.

Mr Lennox said: "It was an unusual telephone call, slightly panicked.

"He said it was a serious crash. Dodi looked to be very badly injured. Diana looked to be very lightly injured... I didn't waste time. I had to see these pictures but in principle I said yes to buying them."

When he saw the photographs - which had clearly been brought out of the tunnel before Rat was arrested and had his films confiscated - he said they "jumped off the screen at me".

He added: "The first photograph I opened up was one of Diana sitting in the well of the back seat ... The door is open and she has a trickle of blood on her face.

"The second is of a doctor attending Diana. He has got one of those portable oxygen mask things. . . That had smeared some of the blood around her face."

Mr Keen, pointing out other photos of the immediate aftermath of the crash, told Darmon: "We don't see Mr Rat rushing up to lend assistance to the occupants of the Mercedes, do we?"

He pointed out that the first two shots on the paparazzo's roll of film were clearly taken seconds after the crash, with the doors of the Mercedes still shut.

The barrister told Darmon: "You know that what Mr Rat was protecting was not the victims of this crash but the £300,000 exclusive that he had just telephoned into The Sun from the tunnel."